Intermedium

Rosa Alcalá's impressive work with language takes shape as poetry, essays, criticism. A thread running through through much of her work is translation, though perhaps its presence need not always be announced, or even understood.

Photographer Alejandro González (b. 1974) has become known for portraits of people that, when shown in groups, become portraits of their cities. Seen above in a photograph taken by González in summer 2015, writer Marcelo Morales (b. 1977) recently completed a new poetry collection that registers personal and collective change in Vedado, a neighborhood within Havana, during the much-publicized transformations hitting Cuba in recent years.

Catch and Release – an English phrase – is the title of a poetry collection composed in Spanish by Reina María Rodríguez.[1] Throughout this book Rodríguez makes repeated reference to objects and occurrences that fall short of desires. Her pattern of representing shortfall became a conscious element as she completed the composition of the book.

Note: Photograph is from the collaborative project Cuerpo del Poema, by Irizelma Robles and ADÁL.

Translations by Urayoán Noel, like his poetry and criticism, are deeply enjoyable. They announce the presence of a vital mind – insightful, singular and often funny. Poems bound, spitting energy. The best part is that even at their most frenetic, the writings emerge out of a long, patient, and illuminating investigation into cultural forms and traditions.

This series tracks recognitions and convergences that give rise to bodies of work in translation. Emerging out of my time spent with Cuban poetry, as well as other writings from this hemisphere, most entries address some intersection between Latin America and the United States, and/or Spanish and English within the US. Some entries center on writers and works that motivate me to continue translating. Others loop outwards to envisage other translators & their translations, and test the frames mounted around translation.

Photograph by Anna Deeny, 2015

Kristin Dykstra’s translations of poetry collections by Reina María Rodríguez, Juan Carlos Flores, Angel Escobar, and Marcelo Morales are published and forthcoming from the University of Alabama Press. She previously translated other books from Cuba, including works by Rodríguez and Omar Pérez, available in bilingual editions from Factory School, Green Integer and Shearsman Books. Dykstra is completing additional books by Pérez, Morales, and the Uruguayan writer Amanda Berenguer, among others. Parallel Editions and Red Hydra Press have published and forthcoming bilingual fine arts editions with her translations of poetry by Rodríguez and Rito Ramón Aroche. With Kent Johnson, Dykstra is co-editor of Materia Prima, an anthology dedicated to Berenguer forthcoming from Ugly Duckling Presse. She co-edited Mandorla: New Writing from the Americas / Nueva escritura de las Américas from 2004-2014 with Gabriel Bernal Granados and Roberto Tejada. Dykstra lives in Hinesburg, Vermont.